Infinity
by this.pen.is.red
Summary: She wondered if she could count to infinity. A drabble about Hotaru being trapped in time.


**Infinity**

 **Disclaimer:** I own nothing, except for (sometimes) my brain.

 **Author's Note:** Back to old tricks, LOL. It's been a long time, Gakuen Alice FFN world. I might not be staying for too long, but pls treat me well.

This is my conception of what being trapped in a time realm would be like. I am not a fan of the whole time traveling thing that the manga went into, but ugh damn it, if Hotaru isn't my favorite character. And her decision to sacrifice herself for her best friend's happiness just adds so much depth to the character that I love so much... I wanted to give it a shot.

I'm rusty. LOL please don't hurt me.

* * *

She slowly opened her eyes.

It was dark. Or light. Or somewhere in between.

The truth was, she couldn't tell anymore. Perhaps the first time her eyes flickered open to this blank canvas of a backdrop, she knew exactly how to describe it- if only because she'd touched, tasted, smelled, heard something moments prior. _The whisper of a goodbye. The wetness of a teardrop._

Yet as time (or, more accurately, _non-time_ ) passed, she could no longer imagine a world unlike this one.

 _This one_.

Where the space surrounding her seemed limitless, boundless, but hollow- filled with nothing but emptiness.

No color, no sound, no smell.

Forever.

She had once tried exploring this foreign ground, walking miles and miles forward as though she had some place to go. She walked through empty space into more empty space, and then some. Nothing had changed.

No color, no sound, no smell.

Soon, even the thumping of her heartbeat- which, she deduced logically, she should have heard- decided to bid her farewell. The color of her skin, hair, clothes- all gone. She tried to make a sound, but her voice would refuse to leave her mouth no matter how hard she pushed it. She doubted her very presence- whether, because her body belonged to a different plane of existence, as she crossed the bridge between worlds, its material reality tore away from her and left behind only an _idea_ of her. That was possible.

And so she gave up trying. It appeared, anyway, from a cost-benefit standpoint, that there was little to gain from her trying to leave. A waste of energy.

She sat on the ground and simply stared ahead into the empty void.

This was her punishment, and she would accept it.

She vaguely recalled that Subaru had thought that if he went along with her- that somehow if their violations of the rules of time coincided- they would serve their life sentences in the same jail cell. Apparently, however, being trapped in time was a solitary affair.

She wondered, with all of this _non-_ time to herself, how Subaru was doing wherever, whenever, he was trapped. Was he, like her, losing sight of what it meant to exist? Was he, like her, hating Fate and Time for being so unbearably cruel? Was he, like her, missing something in the heart that vanished just as quickly as it had been restored?

She knew pondering such things would do little to improve the current state of affairs. After all, the fact of the matter was, she was all alone. Nothing she could do- and this, she could attest to with empirical evidence- would change that.

Still, she ritualistically thought of her brother, of the sacrifices he made on her behalf, and it routinely filled her with a kind of sorrow reserved for those without hope. On days ( _nights?_ ) her mind drifted to the thought of Subaru, her heart felt hollow.

But, in all her solitude, she never once regretted her decision to trade her life. For _her_. For _them._

Even as her sensations numbed and her conception of _that_ other world dissipated, even as she slowly forgot how precisely the brunette's pigtails were done, or what shade of crimson the boy's eyes were colored when he finally awoke from death, she would never forget their presence.

Their love shined brighter than the light of a thousand stars; theirs was a story worth continuing- even if it meant hers would end prematurely.

 _Mikan_.

She hoped the idiot was smiling. She couldn't remember what that warm smile looked like, but she could _feel_ it deep within her and it still had its profound effect.

She slowly closed her eyes.

Something wet dribbled down her cheek like a drop of rain in a drought.

Maybe someday _that_ world would stop turning for a split second, time frozen, and converge with this one. Then she might be able to see her best friend and her idiot face once more- even for a fraction of a moment.

 _Someday._

Until then, she decided she would count down the seconds ( _minutes? hours?)_.

 _1\. 2. 3..._

Until then, she wondered if she could reach infinity.


End file.
